TMNT: Lost Things
by princessebee
Summary: 2k7verse. A collection of short stories and drabbles set in my 2k7verse and starring all of the characters, from the four turtles to April and Casey, to Angel and Usagi. Chapter 8: LeonardoxUsagi
1. Hung Up

_This is a series of short stories and drabbles set in my 2k7verse AU. Many of these will be the result of prompts given to me over at my tumblr, dorkinhighheels. You can read more about this verse in the stories: Loser, Dust of Life, Traffic, Prey, Love Story, Rid of Her, Breathe Me, Crossroads, Stir of Echoes, A Minor Issue and Boys Night Out, all of which can be accessed from my profile. Thanks for reading and please leave a review!_

* * *

 _winnyverse prompted: 20. things you said that I wasn't meant to hear MikeyxAngel_

 **ooo**

That first night, they drive into town to take a room at the poky little motel on the main street. It was obvious to everyone when they came back from the lake holding hands, Angel's lipstick almost entirely kissed off but for a faint red smudge, what the new state of affairs was, but still they wanted more privacy than the rambling old farmhouse could afford right then with every damn room occupied. "I'm… kinda vocal," Mikey had bashfully confessed as they had ambled towards the farmhouse at sunset, both of them dishevelled, breathless and unable to wait any longer.

Angel had cupped his cheek with one beringed hand and let a little smirk quirk her lips. "So'm I."

Mikey had grinned.

The room was nondescript and simple, but it was clean and the double bed was plenty big enough. Theyhad barely noticed it anyway, the tingle of anticipation snatching their breath and quickening their heartbeat as Mikey unlocked the door then shut it quickly behind them, the maddening awareness of each other's proximity distracting their gaze. For a moment they had simply stared at each other, his shell up against the door, her back to the bed. Then she had dropped her purse to the carpet, and they had rushed together and into a passionate clinch that had her knees buckling and a rush of pure desire flooding her loins.

So it had been excruciatingly fucking tiresome when her urgent need to pee had interrupted them moments later, entwined on the bed with both his hands up her top and her grinding hard against one of his hard thighs.

"Hurry," he had groaned, rolling back onto his shell with the butt of his palms pressing into his eyes. "I've been waiting like, twenty years Jewel!"

Finishing her business, she had flushed and washed her hands and checked her reflection even though she knew she could be covered in tar and hay and Mikey would still want her, and was surprised how desirable she looked even to her own eyes, her cheeks and lips flushed, her eyes sparkling, the joyous fire in them lighting her whole face. It had been a long time since she had felt that beautiful.

It was in the silence between the moment she stepped over to the bathroom door and grasped the handle, that she had heard Mikey sigh through the paper thin wood, and fervently whisper:

"Oh God, _please_ let me be better hung than Raph."

She had bit her lip against the giggle even as her eyes stung with tears.

Afterwards, she had told him he was the biggest she'd ever had and though he had tried to shrug it off like it was nothing at all, the grin hadn't left his face for an hour.


	2. Beneath the Stars

_Anonymous prompted:_ _things you said under the stars and in the grass LeoxUsagi_

 **ooo**

"The heavens above your world are most beautiful, Leonardo-san."

Usagi's voice is quiet beneath the canopy of night that hangs over the field, silent but for the whisper of the breeze through the grass, dark but for the distant shimmering of countless stars above them.

Leonardo steals a glance at the handsome white rabbit whose gleaming fur softly quivers as the wind whips around them, his head tilted back to survey the sky. They are sitting together in this empty field in the middle of a summer's night, the looming woods of Northampton at their backs, the plains of grass stretching before them until they meet the horizon which pours, vast and endless, to consume their gaze.

"Are they very different to those of your world, Usagi?" he murmurs softly, not wanting to break the spell that the still field and glimmering night has woven about them, so that he feels as though they sit in enchantment, poised on the brink of infinity.

Usagi blinks, and even in the silvery and ethereal light cast dimly by the stars, Leonardo can see the contemplation in his eyes. Usagi runs a hand back over his long ears, prompting Leonardo to wonder what they would feel like beneath his own calloused palm. His heart quickens and he looks away, glad for the darkness that cloaks his blush, gazing up and into the endless heavens, the inky depths of which he feels as though he could plunge into forever.

"Perhaps it is not that they are so different, my friend. Perhaps it is simply that they are the heavens that you look upon every night that makes them so lovely to me."

Leonardo's breath catches on the stagger of his heartbeat. Slowly, fearfully, he turns to look at Usagi once more, to find that the samurai is staring steadily at him, his large eyes as deep and fathomless as the sky above them, catching the light of the stars so that they glitter darkly. And now Leonardo feels that he _is_ plummeting, that he will never stop.

Usagi reaches through space and cups his cheek with one soft paw. Leonardo's heart spikes and a great shudder echoes through his body. For what seems eternity, they stare into each other's eyes, and the breathless rise of anticipation suffuses him until he is tingling all over.

Then Usagi leans over and presses his mouth to Leonardo's. At once, his stomach upends and turns molten and he is sinking into the older rabbit's arms and they are falling back into the grass which is soft and cool beneath them. Their bodies press and strain against the other, the delicious contrast of bone plating against soft fur eliciting a friction that intensifies the heat between them, the heady exchange of fervent breath around the twining of their tongues making his head spin, causing the world to tip up around them until he is no longer sure where earth ends and heaven begins


	3. Traitor

_belatedbeliever117 prompted: leorai, things you said with too many miles between us_

 **ooo**

Beneath a canopy of gleaming green leaves, Leonardo tips his head back, the warm rain showering his weary skin, spilling over taut muscles, trickling through the intricate grooves of his carapace. Cleansing him.

The journey from Japan to Costa Rica was long and arduous, dogged by the spectre of his failure, leaving him weary in body and spirit. As the dark, thick jungle enveloped him within its savage depths he had at last felt some measure of respite. Here, he could stay - undiscovered and utterly alone - until he had finally conquered this sickness that still grasped him in its awful hold. Here he would stay, shut off from the world and the stain of all his sins, until he knew nothing but his duty.

Perhaps then he could amend the terrible betrayals he had so deviously, so selfishly, inflicted upon his family.

Leonardo opens his eyes and gazes up at the dazzling, layered splendour of the jungle that rises all around him in countless shades and depths of green, in sprays of sparkling fern and heavy, glossy palm leaves, trembling softly beneath the deluge of rain. The dark earth echoes with the force of the elements and he is soaked through, all the way to his marrow, to his very heart. The shadow of that final betrayal will not wash away, the one he had been forced to if this penance was to mean anything at all.

He falls to his knees in the mud, his head lowering as his shoulders are beat beneath the downpour, tearing apart inside.

"I'm sorry, Karai."


	4. Here's Cheers

_anon prompted:_ _Raph just talking to Leo about his yearning for acceptance in society (whatever verse you like) x_

tbh with you, I don't see Raph as yearning for acceptance in society. I just think he has a bunch of existential angst about not being sure about his place or purpose in the world (which I think he would have even if he were human) and frustration, anger and resentment that he has to fear prejudice and can't openly be out in the world. But this doesn't equal a yearning for acceptance, imho. With that said, I'm taking a slightly different approach to this prompt. This is set in my 2k7 AU.

 **ooo**

"I dunno, bro, don't seem much has changed for the better." Raphael knuckled his eyes with one fist then took a slug of his bourbon. "New guy at work got promoted over me already - and he ain't got shit on what I can do. But he's human, so up he goes."

Leonardo's mouth curved upwards in a wry little smile and he glanced down at the glass tumbler in his hand. Ice cubes clinked against each other as he tilted the glass, musing on its amber contents. He'd been nursing the same drink since he and Raphael had first sat down together. Raphael was on his third.

"And don't matter everyone knows about aliens now - they still stare!" Raphael continued brusquely, throwing one arm up. "They don't even try 'n hide it, yannow? What's the big deal about bein' able to walk down the street if every man and his dog is starin' after you with his flytrap wide open'?"

"Well, you might have noticed I still spend most of my time down here," Leonardo replied mildly and Raphael shot him a glance, a wry grin tugging at one corner of his mouth.

"C'mon bro, that's just sour grapes ya can't ride our tails to be stealthy all the damn time anymore. Yer little ninja master fantasy has bit the big one." Raphael's voice was playful, there was even the glimmer of white teeth as he smirked.

Leonardo haughtily rolled his eyes, going along with the ribbing. "Please. I've still got clout around here. If I wasn't around to keep you all in line, you'd be buried neck deep in dirty laundry and empty pork rind packets."

Raphael chuffed and stretched his legs out onto the stool in front of him, draining his glass. Leonardo looked down at his, at the oily golden liquid sliding around the ice, then lifted it to his mouth, his snout wrinkling at the smell. The taste wasn't much better, but he enjoyed these rare evenings with Raphael enough to force it down. As it happened, his brother wasn't a heavy drinker either - he just liked it way more.

Leonardo grimaced as the liquor burned its way down to his gut, glanced over at the red-masked turtle who was blearily rubbing his eyes again. Raphael had been working a lot of double shifts lately, and Leonardo couldn't help but worry about him - though he'd never let on. Not intentionally anyway.

"Some ways the alien shit just complicates things more," Raphael was grumbling, reaching for the bottle of bourbon. "People ain't shy 'bout askin' any more than they are 'bout starin'." He proffered the bottle to Leonardo, who politely allowed him to fill his glass, then topped up his own. "They all wanna know - which planet ya come from, where in the galaxy is it, can ya ride a space ship, do you got a space gun, what kinda species are ya - can you say somethin' in yer own language - geeze, ya speak English real well for an alien!" Raphael's voice was scornful and growing ever louder. "I don't got the imagination for any of that!"

Leonardo clicked his tongue sympathetically, braved another sip of bourbon. A thought occurred to him.

"These sound like questions that girls would ask," he observed gently.

Raphael stiffened and his eyes widened a little before he could stop himself. Busted, he relented and chuckled raspily, scratching the back of his head in a sheepish fashion.

"Yeah. Well. There's a bar on the corner just down from the garage. Guys 'n me go in after work sometimes."

"Where you get stared at and questioned by curious women?" Leonardo was trying not to smile, but not that hard.

Raphael shrugged, took another sip of his drink and fixed his attention on the television.

"Hmmmmm." Leonardo did not trouble to conceal the note of amusement in his voice.

"Shuddup," Raphael snorted. "It's nothin'."

"I'm sure." Leonardo was absurdly pleased by the thought Raphael was out there, flirting and having fun, even as he couldn't help himself but worry. His moody and damaged brother could do with a little more levity in his life. So long as he was careful.

"It ain't." Raphael was serious again, glancing at Leonardo with his intense, dark eyes. "It's just a novelty to 'em. It - it's kinda fun but it ain't real."

Leonardo's heart sank again beneath his plastron, but he concealed it, gazing silently at Raphael. He knew his brother was right. They were barely two years into the Utrom Arrival - things didn't change that fast. Still, this reminder of how deep Raphael's cynicism yet ran affected him.

"I ain't gonna be anybody's experiment," Raphael continued stubbornly, a scowl knitting his heavy brows together. Then he looked Leo directly in the eye and smirked again. "So ya can quit that lecture I know yer workin' on."

Leonardo held up a hand in surrender and grinned. "Hey, some things need to stay the same in this brave new world."

"I'll drink to that," Raphael replied with enthusiasm and held out his glass towards his brother's. Leonardo clinked his against it, and the two brothers drank.


	5. Broken

_theherocomplex prompted: "Help me, the computer's making sad beeps again. Make it happy, please." for Amber/Donnie friendship :D_

 **ooo**

"Ah, fuck," Amber thumped her fist on the table, cigarette drooping from her lips. "Fuckin' piece of shit machine."

Autumn rain steadily pattered against the window sill, the sky outside a dim grey. The hiss of tires along drenched streets below composed the baseline for the city's rhythm, relentless as the pulse of her own heartbeat, jumping beneath her fingertips when she bent her head to them.

"Can I help?"

Donatello's voice was mild, but still she started, sucking in between her teeth. She scowled at the monitor, then plucked the cigarette from her lips and turned around to look at the turtle where he stood by the door, an empty coffee mug clasped in one hand.

"Nearly gave me a heart-attack." She meant it to sound playful, but it came out rather grim.

Donatello's mouth quirked in a little smile. "Sorry." His gaze wandered to the cigarette where it dangled in her hand and there was a beat of tension as he confirmed it was unlit. She fought back the smirk.

He lifted his eyes to hers once more. "Seriously, do you need a hand?"

She chuckled, rocked the chair back and forth, crossing a skinny ankle over her knee. "I'm sure that's just what you need, another computer illiterate suckin' up your time with dumbass cries for help."

"Tch," he snorted, ambling across the wide living room towards where she sat at the dining table with Raphael's third-hand laptop open in front of her, the one Michelangelo had passed onto him eight years ago, he in turn having been been bequeathed it by Donatello. "As if I'm not used to it after all this time." He waved his hands in the air and lifted his voice in mimicry: "Help me Donnie, the computer's making sad beeps again. Make it happy, please!" I've been glorified tech support since I was eight years old."

Amber chuckled and turned the clunky old computer towards him. "Well, have at it then, pal."

For all her nonchalance, she was aware how she tensed slightly as he got close, brow furrowing over intelligent brown eyes when he bent to peer at the screen, experimentally running the tip of a finger over the touchpad. She and Donatello had not exactly been chummy since Raphael brought her back to earth and into the house he shared with his brother and April. Mostly, they had avoided each other.

Mostly.

"Hm. So, uh, what's the problem you're having?" he queried her and she put the cigarette between her lips again and grasped the laptop, tugging it back towards her.

"Okay, so. I'm tryin' to write a resume. Which is a fuckin' joke for a start-off, but anyway. Look, here, when I try to go back and fix up my spelling mistakes. Look, see what happens?" She demonstrated by positioning the cursor in the middle of a sentence and started typing. "It just starts deleting everything that comes after it! I mean, what the fuck? Is it a virus?"

She looked at Donatello, who was staring at the screen with a carefully composed expression, brow ridges just lightly raised. She wasn't sure that he had ever been so close to her before - he smelled faintly of coffee and chemicals she couldn't identify and beneath his unmasked eyes the green skin was mottled and splotchy from lack of sleep. It struck her suddenly he was probably noticing similar details about her - the scent of tobacco and A La Nuit, the way her eyelashes faded to white at the tips. She resisted the urge to cringe away from him.

"Well, the good news is there's nothing wrong with the computer," Donatello said easily. "You've just hit a key by accident here - this one." He pointed to one marked INS on the top right hand side of the keyboard. "Or maybe this one." He indicated another at the bottom. "Whenever this happens, just hit the key again and it will switch the overwrite function off." He tapped the key smartly and ran his fingers over the letter keys as a demonstration. Amber watched and blood tingled lightly in her cheeks. It was a stupid mistake. One that had to be right up there with not having the goddamn machine plugged in or something like that.

But Donatello just smiled mildly at her. "It's easy to do." There was no condescension in his voice, no exasperation either. It was a simple dissemination of information, courteous in its neutrality.

"Thanks," she said, and rubbed her nose.

"No problem," Donatello stood back and turned towards the kitchen. "I'm getting a coffee. You want one?"

Amber shrugged. "Sure." She retrieved her own mug, the cold remnants of her morning dose slopping around the bottom. She wasn't making any progress with the fucking resume anyway.

Donatello led the way into the kitchen and Amber tipped her cold coffee out into the sink and put the mug beside his as he set to work grinding the beans. She walked across the black and white linoleum to one of the picture windows, pushing up the sash so that a chill gust of wet air rushed over her. Sitting on the sill, she lit her cigarette and surveyed the room, a bright and airy space with gleaming state of the art appliances and walls the colour of a robin's egg. Raphael had told her the place used to be a dump, a damp, crumbling set of apartments atop a dusty, useless junk shop. Twenty years later and the changed fortune of the O'Neil progeny had transformed the building into a high end antique store, the upper levels now wide, open plan living spaces. She drew back hard on her cigarette and smiled wryly to herself as she looked down onto the street below, glistening silver beneath the patter of the rain. Across the road there was an artisan bakery; next to it a vegan grocers. Of course, the whole damned neighbourhood had changed. If the building hadn't been owned by the O'Neil family, April would've been priced out of the area a long time before she had the chance to catch up.

For a moment too long, there was silence between them.

"So, you're writing your resume?" Donatello attempted as the aroma of coffee mingled with the damp scent of rain let in by the open window.

Amber exhaled out into the street and nodded. "Yeah."

He nodded as well and busied himself with the sugar bowl. "What sort of work are you looking for?"

She shrugged, looked down at a tall, hairy alien in a rain slicker hurrying down the street, newspaper held above his head. "Just about anythin' that'll take me. Which, given my criminal record, will probably be somethin' out of sight and nasty."

Donatello stepped over to the fridge and took out the milk carton. "Criminal record?" he queried lightly, curiously. "Didn't I - um - delete that for you?"

"Ah yeah," a wry grin spread over her lips before she could stop it. "I kinda went and got myself another one."

He turned back towards the espresso machine. "Ah."

"Don't worry," she pulled back on her cigarette again. "Just what you'd expect - soliciting, possession, the usual." She exhaled into the rain, watching the plume of smoke swirl off into the haze. "Oh, and one attempted murder." She smirked at Donatello. "But the fucker really had it comin'."

"I'm sure he did," Donatello replied mildly and she remembered with a twitch that he's a ninja, just like his brother. "Milk?"

"Just black, thanks."

"Hm." He put the milk back in the refrigerator and she noticed he took his coffee black as well. "Sugar?"

She stubbed the cigarette out into the brick outside the window and watched as the butt fell to the pavement below. "Five."

Donatello chuckled and shook his head a little as he began dunking spoonfuls of sugar into her mug. "Well, we have the same taste in coffee." And not much else. The words hung silently between them as the rain grew heavier, drumming relentlessly against the roof. She slumped against the window frame, determined to be nonchalant.

"Thanks," she accepted the mug from him, and for a moment their gaze flickered, caught, then darted away again. She took a long sip of her coffee and frantically scrabbled around for something to say.

"So what are you - " she began.

"So, maybe I could - " he started at the same time.

She snorted and he chuckled and for a moment it was easy. She curled her toes against the window frame and nodded to him. "You go."

He cupped his mug between both hands and took a deep sip. "I was just thinking - I could set you up some references. A couple of phone lines. Voice filters. It'd be very simple to do."

Her eyebrows darted up her freckled forehead. "Oh yeah?"

He shrugged. "If you want."

"Yeah," she was nodding slowly, a smile tugging her pale lips. "You know - that would be really fuckin' helpful actually. I mean - " she gestured with a bony hand. " - if you don't mind, that is."

He shook his head. "I don't mind." A sudden grin curved his mouth. "It'd be fun actually. My days of benevolently illegal activities are all but over."

"I know the feeling," Amber smirked over the rim of her mug and for a moment they smiled at each other across the kitchen in perfect understanding.

Donatello's phone beeped and he tugged it out of his belt as she turned to gaze out the window once more, at the way the rain hazed soft grey over the buildings, how the city lights glimmered through the afternoon storm.

"Damn," Donatello muttered and she shot him an enquiring glance. He was frowning behind the counter, tapping away at his phone.

"Mikey can't babysit tonight," he explained when he caught her eye. "But April and I haven't been out in a while. I'll have to find a service."

She fumbled in the pockets of her pajama bottoms for another cigarette then realised she'd left them in the other room, and twitched irritably. "Hey, I can watch Shadow if you like."

Donatello's brow furrowed some more. "I thought Raphael was working late tonight?"

Amber shrugged and began twisting a strand of red hair, misted from the rainfall beyond the window, between her fingers. "He is. But I got no plans."

Donatello paused for a fraction of a second, but it was long enough for her to comprehend, at once and entirely, and her guts turned cold.

"We wouldn't want to put you out," he said in that careful, neutral tone, his politeness excruciating. He took a sip of his coffee and began to scroll through his phone as she sat there in the window frame, her grip tightening around the mug in her hands.

"You wouldn't be," she said quietly, and it came out as a challenge in a voice cold as stone.

Donatello inhaled deeply through his nostrils and then looked at her, directly in the eye. "I don't think it's a good idea right now," he said bluntly and her fingers twitched with the urge for a cigarette between them, to raise to her lips and obscure in a puff of smoke the tensing of her jaw, the way her eyes glittered and then hardened.

Instead she slid off the sill, tossing the last of her coffee out the window where it fled through the rain and splattered against the pavement. "At least you're honest," she drawled, setting the mug down on the counter with a sharp click and sauntering towards the door. "I'll give ya that."

"It's not personal," he said in that same even tone and she spun around and leaned on the door frame, one skinny arm above her head, a sneer twisting her mouth.

"You can't trust the ex-junkie whore to keep an eye on your kid for a few hours? Spare me. That's as personal as it gets."

Donatello blinked thoughtfully and took a sip of his coffee. "Very well."

"Fuck you," she sneered, and turned away, striding through the living room and smacking shut the lid of the laptop with a careless flick of her hand as she passed. He didn't try to stop her.


	6. Mourn

_lori-hill prompted: "Things you didn't say at all" with the pairing that gives you the most feels?_

 **ooo**

It was as the sun slowly bled over the dark tips of the maple trees on the third afternoon that they returned to the farmhouse.

Amber was smoking in the rocking chair Casey Jones' great grandfather had carved a hundred years before, her feet propped up on the window sill of the third bedroom on the second floor. She sat in the dark, gazing out into the sky as it began to glimmer with stars. One shone brightest of all, brilliant green against the twilight. Quadrivium, the space station on which she had spent three years of her life. She watched it, and smoked, and waited for him.

He made no effort to conceal his tread on the stairs. She seemed to hear each aching tick of his heart in the slow, heavy footfalls. A breeze skimmed across her toes through the open window. Downstairs, she heard the screen door clatter and the tender murmur of Usagi's voice as he and Leonardo crossed the yard to the barn.

When the bedroom door creaked open, she stubbed out the butt of her cigarette in the old glass ashtray balanced on one bony knee, then spun the chair on its rockers, turning her back on the stars.

Raphael's shoulders were bowed and his one good eye was mottled dark and bleary. As he silently shrugged off his old leather bomber jacket, he moved with a laborious care that seemed to age him thirty years. She watched him, and her heart quietly tore.

He stripped off his pads and his belt, laying his weapons carefully aside on the chest at the foot of the bed. He pulled off his bandana and eye patch, scratched his neck with large, calloused fingertips and sighed heavily. Then he turned towards her.

They met each other, kisses desperate and furious and she could taste the chilled note of grief on his tongue. His hands were rough and cold, his skin icy against hers as he tugged off her robe, his plastron sliding coarsely against her breasts when he hoisted her up to straddle him. She clung to his shoulders and fed his need with her own desire.

They fell onto the bed and he rolled her under him, his breath ragged against her mouth. She opened up for him willingly, eagerly, drawing him lovingly into the warm core of her body and cradling him close as he fucked her hard and fast and desperate. The old bed rocked violently beneath them as the last light died beyond the window, and they pushed and pulled against each other between the shadows.

They came together, a moment that ebbed endlessly in the twined tension of their bodies.

Then Raphael began to cry. Softly, sadly, he wept until his tears splashed her own cheeks, their bodies still joined, their foreheads pressed together. She held him close as he cried, her thin arms encircling his rigid shoulders, her legs hitched on the rim of his carapace. He cried for a long time, tears spilling even from the leathery creases of his missing eye, his plastron heaving, and she held him and her heart seemed to swell with the force of his grief.

He stopped as abruptly as he had started, swallowing hard. She opened her eyes and looked at him, the lined planes of his face deepened in the darkness that had settled around them, the sorrow etched into the shadows below his eyes, in the downward tug of his mouth. Then she reached up and kissed him softly.

He drew in a shuddering breath when their lips parted, then sat up, pulling gently out of her, wiping his face with the back of a hand. As she pushed herself up on her palms, he gave her an apologetic glance and she reached out to brush his cheek, her knuckles coming away wet. He snuffled a little, a wry smile quirking the dark corner of his mouth then looked toward the window. A chill breeze lifted the curtains, chased across the room to skim their skin. The sky outside was fully dark and they sat draped in shadows, their skin cooling rapidly without the close press of the other. Down the hallway, Donatello and April's bedroom door creaked quietly, then shut with a click.

In the scant cast of the moonlight, his one eye glittered with fresh tears and she shifted onto her knees, took his face in her hands and kissed them away as they flowed down his cheeks. He did not protest when she tugged him down, urged him beneath the covers. He rested his head on her chest, his big arms wrapping around her and she calmly bore the weight of him. She stroked his head and rubbed his shoulder and he sighed again, deeply, heavily. Downstairs there was a distant clink and rattle as Michelangelo started dinner, and life went on.


	7. Tremble

_ramidole prompted "trembling hands"_

 **ooo**

"C'mon kid, gimme a break!" Raphael hovered desperately near the crib as the baby kicked her legs against the mattress and wailed loud enough to raise the roof. "Jesus, Mikey, what's takin' you so long?"

Shadow continued to howl, her brown cheeks ruddy with emotion, tears streaming from her eyes. The sight of it made Rapahel's heart twist, his fists clenching in frustration.

"Fuck!" He couldn't stand it anymore. In one lunge, he stepped over to the crib and scooped the baby up before he lost his nerve. Holding Shadow at arm's length away from him, he awkwardly bobbed her up and down. "Shhhhh. Shhhhh. C'mon kiddo, settle down. C'mon now. Shhhhh."

Abruptly Shadow opened her eyes and gazed at him. Their eyes locked, hers red-rimmed and swimming in tears, brimming with an unspeakable heartache that only the innocent could know. For a moment, Raphael couldn't breathe.

She whimpered and lifted her little arms, chubby fingers reaching for him.

"Oh, sweetheart." Something gave way in his chest and Raphael drew Shadow close against his plastron, fumbling to arrange her in his arms the way Michelangelo so easily did, his hands trembling hard. He was a little breathless as he grappled to secure her, her fragile body seeming in danger of slipping from his grasp at any moment.

Finally he got her cradled safely, her head resting in the crook of his arm, the small bundle of her warm and soft in his huge hands. He tried rocking her and felt like a jackass, but it was the only thing that soothed away the strange pang that had gripped his heart at the sight of her stricken face, so he kept going.

And incredibly, she stopped crying.


	8. Breathless

_loonilum prompted: 9 falling, 40 pet and 29 sweat_

 **ooo**

 **falling**

Leonardo watched as Usagi deftly wrapped the _ito_ in an intricate pattern around the hilt of his katana, his long, tapered fingers gleaming pearly white by the fire's soft glow. The silk braid twined and twisted over itself, guided into place by Usagi's knowing hands, muscles honed by decades of training flexing beneath his fur as he tightened the finishing knot and tucked it into place. Leonardo's gaze flickered up to the rabbit's face, his handsome features gently composed, focused on his task. Abruptly, he raised his eyes to Leonardo's, dark and serene, and Leonardo's heart was racing, the heat rising to his cheeks, suffused with a breathless desire that left him trembling and terrified.

 **pet**

Usagi's gasp was soft as the whisper of a breeze between the grass as Leonardo's powerful hands ran smooth and firm up over his shoulders. White fur first ruffled in snowy peaks, then smoothed like cream when those huge green hands quested downwards again, the toned musculature of Usagi's back beneath his fingertips making Leonardo's tail twitch and thicken.

 **sweat**

Usagi tipped his head back against the grass and groaned to the stars as Leonardo thrust deep within him, gasping against his neck. Usagi's fur glistened with perspiration smeared there by the desperate grind of Leonardo's body against his and he clung hard to his lover's shoulders as he was ridden into ecstatic oblivion.


End file.
